A changing of the guard at the nation’s most prominent foundations continued Thursday with the announcement that Rockefeller Brothers Fund president and CEO Stephen Heintz — the longest-serving top executive at the 80-year-old grant maker — will step down in 2026.
Heintz, 73, who has led the $1.4 billion grant maker since 2001, positioned RBF as a significant player in efforts to fight climate change, establish peace abroad, and strengthen democracy in the United States. Notably, as the leader of a foundation established by the grandsons of oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, he helped to lead the effort to persuade nonprofits and philanthropy to divest from fossil fuels . A decade after RBF divested, its investment portfolio is 99.7 percent fossil-fuel free.
RBF was also instrumental in behind-the-scenes talks between Iranian and U.S. nongovernmental officials that led to formal negotiations and a 2015 deal to restrict Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
Heintz will leave RBF next spring. The foundation said it will begin a search for his successor later this year.
In an interview with the Chronicle, Heintz said it was time for the foundation to have “refreshed leadership and inspiration,” particularly as the sixth generation of the Rockefeller family takes seats on the board. He came to RBF, he said, just as the fourth generation was giving way to the fifth.
“I think a younger leader who is closer to their lived experience and the kinds of ways that they work in the world and engage in the world can be really effective going forward,” he said.
Heintz said he will not likely take a full-time position after he leaves RBF but will teach, serve on several nonprofit boards, and pursue research and writing related to democracy and international peace and security.
Others Stepping Down
Heintz’s departure represents the latest turnover at some of the nation’s most prominent foundations. Darren Walker, who’s led the Ford Foundation since 2013, will step down at year’s end. Other venerable leaders who have left their posts in recent years include: Robert Ross, who led the California Endowment for 25 years; Larry Kramer, who led the Hewlett Foundation for more than a decade; and Alberto Ibargüen, who retired from the Knight Foundation after almost 20 years at the helm.
Heintz arrived at RBF when it was among the 100 largest U.S. foundations. The Gates Foundation had just been established, the beginning of what became a flood of new billion-dollar foundations with living donors, many of them tech entrepreneurs. RBF has been pushed outside the top 100 but has sought to remain influential through what Heintz calls “acupuncture philanthropy.”
Philanthropies, he said, “just have these tiny little needles. And the real question is, where do we insert the needle to trigger some bigger systemic change?” RBF, he said, focuses “on a handful of very important, very dynamic places in the world that are where these issues of democracy, peace, and climate are really salient.”
“With great intellect, diplomacy, and empathy, Stephen Heintz has amplified the impact of our modest grant making and transformed the Rockefeller Brothers Fund into a truly global foundation,” said Joseph Pierson, chair of the RBF Board of Trustees, in a press release.
Federica Mogherini, an RBF board member and former vice president of the European Commission, said: “His insights and leadership on Iran, Afghanistan, the Middle East, the Balkans, Europe, and other matters of international security that are close to my heart are impressive.” She also praised his plan to “reform and renew the global governance architecture,” outlined last year in the report “A Logic for the Future: International Relations in the Age of Turbulence.”
In the United States, Heintz and RBF have been driving work to strengthen democracy through reforms in Washington but also through work in local communities. Heintz was a co-chair of the American Academy of Arts and Science’s Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, which in 2020 produced the influential Our Common Purpose report, which featured 31 recommendations that targeted electoral and governance institutions — the U.S. House of Representatives and the Supreme Court among them — and called for building a “civic infrastructure.”
Building on ideas from the report, RBF last year launched the Trust for Civic Life, a funder collaborative that aims to invest $50 million in community leaders and groups that bring people together to address often fundamental local concerns, whether that’s a fading industry, a dilapidated park, or access to quality health care.
“In this field, Stephen has been one of the great catalysts, said Eric Liu, CEO of Citizen University and a co-chairman of the commission. “He has made possible things that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.”
Liu also described him as a “rare combination of a “mensch and master strategist” — someone with integrity and ideals but also the ability to get things done.
Heintz recently discussed the trust’s work on The Commons in Conversation, the Chronicle’s interview series with philanthropy and nonprofit leaders working to bring Americans together and strengthen fractured communities.
“Democracy is more than a system of self-government,” he said. “It is more than a legislative process. It is more than voting. Democracy is a way of life, and it is nurtured in our communities, in our everyday experiences with each other as citizens in our democracy.”
